In the Hours Before Waking
by PastelWinter
Summary: When the darkness of night has fallen over the world, in the hours before waking, one's imagination becomes their reality, and nothing is as it seems. Some have more to fear from the depths of their mind than others. No slash.


The clear sound of a bell rang out, destroying the silence that had existed seconds before.

_Ding dong!_

The God of Mischief started at the sudden tone.

It was followed by the ticking of an unseen clock. _Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock._ It was a chilling sound, for it seemed as if there were a message hidden within the ticking: _you're running out of time!_

Emerald eyes opened slowly (had they even been closed? He wasn't sure), and Loki found himself in the grand dining hall of his home. He turned around slowly, feeling disoriented. Hadn't there just been a ticking sound? It was gone now. And he seemed to recall hearing a bell only seconds earlier as well.

But in the next moment, all thoughts of bells and clocks faded from Loki's mind. Because the dining hall was utterly empty.

That fact alone would not be a cause to be overly alarmed, but there was a thick layer of dust over everything in sight. It was clear that no one had been in the room for a very, very long time.

Loki frowned. But that made no sense. He and his family dined here every night. In fact, surely they had been in here last night...hadn't they? _Had _they? A perplexed feeling overcame him. He couldn't...he couldn't seem to remember.

"Hello?" he called out. His voice echoed through the hall. "Is anyone there?"

There was no reply. Loki felt uneasy. He quickly departed from the empty dining hall, allowing his feet to lead him on a wandering journey though the rest of the castle. Through the halls he went, to Thor's quarters, to his parents'. His dread grew more and more with every step.

The whole castle was completely empty. There were layers of dust over everything. No people were to be found anywhere. The castle was utterly abandoned.

Something was very, very wrong.

Finally, Loki stopped in his own empty rooms. He stood, silently. Where _was _everyone? What had happened?

It was the unexpected sound of footsteps that made him turn around. There was a young boy approaching. He stopped a few feet away from Loki, then looked up. Their eyes, the exact same shade of green, met.

Loki's breath caught in his throat. It couldn't be. But it was.

He was staring at a child version of himself.

"Who- who _are_ you?" he managed to gasp out.

The boy regarded him with what seemed to be amusement. "Who _am_ I? Isn't the answer rather obvious? I must say, I expected better from you- or rather, from _us_. For we are, of course, one and the same."

Loki shook his head. He felt as if there were a heavy fog over his brain, preventing him from thinking properly. "You're..._me_," he said slowly.

"I am you and you are me," the child version of himself agreed.

"Do you know why the castle is empty?" Loki demanded. "Why it looks as though no one has been here for years? _Do you know where my family is?"_

The boy smiled mischievously. "You do realize you're asking these questions to yourself? If _you_ don't know the answers what makes you think I would?"

"I do not have the time for this," Loki said angrily. "Do you know of my family's whereabouts or do you not?"

"Who do you mean by your family?"

The question startled Loki. "Odin. Frigga. Thor." His voice cracked slightly on the last word.

Sadness entered the boy's green eyes. "But they are not your family."

The words struck a chord in Loki. "No," he said, and heard the loneliness in his voice. "No, you're right. Of course they aren't."

"Do you really believe that?" his younger self questioned.

Loki blinked. "Of...of course."

"I'm not so sure you do."

"But you just said-" Loki began, confused. Then he stopped, deciding it wasn't worth it. "I do believe it, I assure you." His voice turned bitter. "They lied to me my whole life."

The child-him didn't say anything. "You think that I still think they are my family," he stated.

The boy shrugged. "Maybe I do, maybe I don't."

"I do not," Loki repeated firmly. Then, "Do you think I'm lying?"

The mischievous look was back in his child-self's eyes. "If you're lying to me, you're lying to you. Which is a definite possibility. After all, you lie to everyone else; why wouldn't you lie to yourself, as well?"

"Enough of this," Loki said. "Do you know where my fam- _they_ are, or do you not?"

"I'll tell you a secret," the boy said. He leaned forward confidentially and whispered, "All of this..." -he gestured around them- "is coming from your own mind."

Loki felt chills creeping up his spine. "You're saying...that this isn't real?"

"I never said it wasn't real," the child returned, "I just said it's coming from your mind."

"But..." Loki started, and heard his voice come out hoarse. "It can't be."

"Do you think I'm lying to you? I might be. We've already established that you could very well lie to yourself."

"Enough of this foolishness!" Loki cried.

His younger self nodded. "Very well." And with that, he vanished.

Loki cried out without meaning to at the boy's sudden disappearance. Then the horrible silence returned. "No! Come back!" But everything remained quiet.

Feeling suddenly weary, Loki sat down on his bed. Clouds of dust rose up, but he ignored it. The knowledge that the whole castle was empty made him feel uncomfortably small. Miserably, he wondered where everyone had gone. What if something had happened to his parents? What if something had happened to _Thor?_ Despair crept into his heart. What was he going to _do_? He was at a loss.

Presently he rose from the bed and exited his quarters. With no destination in mind, he once again began to wander the halls.

"Loki!"

In the silent castle, the call rang out.

Loki turned in the direction of the voice. "_Thor?" _At the sight of his brother standing a few feet away, Loki was suddenly filled with several emotions; the foremost of which was relief, sweet, strong relief that knew no bounds.

"Loki! You're here, and you're all right! I was so worried that you were..._gone_ as well."

After seeing a child version of himself, Loki was filled with apprehension. "Thor, is it...is it really you?" What if it wasn't? he thought with fear.

Thor seemed to understand perfectly, for he nodded and said sincerely, "Yes, brother. It's me."

If it really was something other than his brother, of course it could be lying, but somehow Loki didn't doubt the words were true. "Good," he breathed, reassured. The one word didn't come close to describing how glad he felt to see his brother.

"I'm so glad you're all right," Thor said, looking as relieved as Loki felt. "You have dust in your hair," he added, lifting a hand to brush it out.

"Thor. What has happened?"

The relief in his brother's eyes turned to grief. "I don't know. When I woke up this morning, it was to find the whole castle empty. It looks as if no one has been here for a hundred years." A ghost of the relieved smile flitted back across his lips. "I thought you had disappeared as well." Then he asked, "Brother, do you know _when_ this happened?"

Loki cast his mind back. When exactly had he realized that the castle was abandoned? He had been standing in the dining hall, he recalled. It was empty. But what of before then? How had he _gotten_ to where he'd been standing? Loki suddenly felt icy cold as he realized that he couldn't remember.

"Thor," he began, his voice rising. "I don't..."

Before he could finish his sentence, the sound of a bell rang out.

It was one note, long and clear, that seemed both high pitched and low pitched at the same time. Loki's first impression upon hearing it was sadness; raw, indescribable sadness. How could a single note hold so much grief? But underneath that, there was a kind of urgency as well. It seemed both smooth and frantic at the same time.

How so much could be contained in the single note of a bell, Loki did not know. But as the sound rang on, he was gripped by an irrational- or perhaps not so irrational- fear. "What is that?" he cried.

"What is what?" Thor asked.

Loki stared at him as the sounds grew louder. "The- the bells!"

"Bells?" Thor repeated.

"Can't you hear them?"

"I do not hear anything of the sort, brother." Thor was beginning to look alarmed.

And then Loki realized. The ringing of the bells was inside his head.

Suddenly, they stopped.

"Brother?"

"It's all right," Loki said. "They've stopped now."

Thor looked worried, and a bit like he was considering questioning Loki about his sanity. He did not, though; instead he sank to the floor, leaned against the wall, and let out a sigh. His bright blue eyes were filled with sudden despair. Loki sat down next to Thor.

"Where are our parents?" Thor asked helplessly to nothing in particular.

Loki felt his brother's helplessness mirrored in himself, but when he responded, his voice was bitter. "_Your_ parents. Not mine. They were never mine." Perhaps, buried under the bitterness, there was hurt, as well. He didn't know.

Thor favored him with a look that held a little exasperation, but mostly pain. "Loki, is now really the time to discuss such matters? I think we have rather more important issues at hand."

Suddenly Loki felt the desire to see the hurt he felt mirrored in Thor's eyes- because, yes, there _was_ pain mixed with the bitterness- so he said, "I would have expected you to show a bit more care for the subject. Considering that you've lost your only brother."

"Loki, you know how I feel about that. I'll always consider you my brother, no matter what."

Loki was considering how best to respond to that, when a second later, his whole body tensed. "Thor." His voice shook.

"What is it?"

"Look at the wall in front of us."

Thor looked, and saw what it was that was making Loki's voice shake. "That...wasn't there before," he said slowly.

"No. It wasn't."

For directly in front of them, in the middle of the castle wall, was the entryway to a tunnel. It was little more than a wide hole in the wall. Beyond, Loki could see nothing but darkness that stretched on and on.

Thor stood and walked over to it. "Let's see where it leads, then."

Loki followed. "What? No! This just appeared out of nowhere- it could be dangerous!"

"Brother, this castle seems to have not been lived in for years. Our parents are gone. _Everyone_ is gone. Surely we won't encounter anything worse."

Loki wasn't sure. He peered into the vast darkness. The silence within seemed even more oppressive than that of the empty castle. But perhaps it did lead somewhere, somewhere that could give them a clue as to what had happened.

"Let's go on, then," he said, trying to sound indifferent despite the apprehension he felt.

And so they did. They began to walk, and they kept walking. On and on. After a time Loki's eyes adjusted to the darkness. Not that there was much to see- only gray stone walls, floor, and ceiling, all the same. The further they went, the more uneasy Loki felt. As if..._something _was going to happen to them in here. The beginning of the tunnel grew further and further away behind them, and Loki wished he had never entered it. Even the horrible, abandoned castle was better than this never-ending darkness.

It was so lonely here. Loki felt the urge to move closer to Thor, to press against the warmth of the only other living creature in his deserted once-home. He would have, were it not for the fact that, of course, he _couldn't_. Not after what he had done.

But either Thor knew what he was thinking or he felt the same way, for his brother's fingers sought his in the darkness. As their hands joined, Loki felt some sense of comfort.

On and on they continued.

"This has to end soon," Thor spoke up. After listening to the silence for so long, the sudden words sounded strange. Loki didn't know which of them his brother was trying to reassure by them.

"Thor," he said, and though he heard the fear in his voice, he just didn't care. "What if this tunnel has _no_ end? What if we just keep...walking?" On and on. _Forever._

"We won't," his brother answered. "We can always turn around and go back."

But what if they did turn back, and the castle didn't reappear? Loki shivered. He was about to present this new chilling idea, but that was when he heard the footsteps. Footsteps that belonged to neither him nor Thor.

"There's someone in here," he hissed.

The footsteps grew louder and louder as they drew nearer, and he was almost unaware of his hand tightening around Thor's.

Then, the owner of the footsteps emerged from the darkness in front of them.

Loki stumbled back, gasping.

He was once again facing another version of himself. But this one was worse than the child; oh, so much worse. This new Loki was ragged and thin, with his clothes in tatters and his black hair hanging limply around his gaunt face; he was little more than a corpse. His familiar green eyes were unnaturally wide, or perhaps they only appeared that way because of his pinched face.

The horrible, corpse version of himself smiled.

And then Loki felt it for the first time. _Terror_. From when he had found the castle abandoned and afterwards, he had felt many similar, milder emotions: fear, worry, uneasiness, apprehension.

The corpse continued to smile.

Yes_, this_ was pure terror that was running through his veins.

The corpse of himself opened his mouth, and in a croaky, sing-song voice, uttered: "Tick, tock. Tick, tock. You're running out of time!" A wild cackle tore loose from his lips. He danced closer, arms flailing. Loki was petrified; he couldn't even think to run.

"_Tick, tock!_ Tick, tock!" Ever closer the corpse came. "You're running out of time!"

Cackling madly, he- or maybe it was an _it?- _grasped Loki's left arm.

"Let- go!" he gasped, pulling back, but the skeletal hand was strong, and he couldn't break free.

"Tick, tock," the corpse repeated, it's voice now no more than a breezy whisper. Then, finally, his grip on Loki loosened. Then he disappeared altogether.

Even after his departure, Loki's terror continued to mount. Because there on his left arm, where the other-him had touched, was the image of a clock.

And worse still. It was _ticking._

"L-loki?" came Thor's shaking voice. Loki had forgotten he was even there.

His eyes finally leaving the image of the clock on his arm, he asked, "Did you see that too?" Perhaps it was like the bells, something that only he had heard or seen. But the quiet ticking of the clock seemed very real.

Thor nodded. His eyes, filled with horror, were transfixed on Loki's arm.

_Tick tock, tick tock._

The ticking was the only thing that broke the silence.

Icy cold was creeping into every ince of Loki's body. He shivered. He felt so, so cold. Cold and filled with despair. Even though Thor stood next to him, he suddenly felt completely alone. He sank to the floor, tears springing to his eyes. "Why is this _happening?" _he moaned.

Thor sat down beside him on the cold stone floor. "I don't know," he said helplessly. Loki felt his older brother's arms being wrapped around him. He leaned against them. It didn't alleviate the cold entirely, but it did help some. What helped even more were the unspoken words the gesture held: _it's okay. You're not alone, I'm still here._

After a moment, Loki stirred. "Let's go on. We need to see where this leads."

And so, again, they continued. And soon enough, they reached the end of the tunnel. The gray stone walls and floor abruptly stopped, and instead they found themselves in a small, bare room. It resembled some sort of box, with dirty walls that all looked the same. It was, Loki thought, rather anti-climatic after such a long tunnel.

Thor's cry broke the silence. "Sif!"

At first the word made no sense to Loki. Then he saw her- how could he have not noticed her right away?- standing in the small room. But it was no ordinary Sif. Like the first version of himself, she appeared as a child.

Thor didn't seem to care about her change in age, though. "Sif!" he said again. "What has happened? Where is everyone?"

Child-Sif stared at them. When she spoke it was in a flat, expressionless voice. "It's time to play a game."

Loki's brow furrowed. "A game? We don't have time for games. _Do you know what has happened?"_

"You have to play a game," Sif repeated. "The final game."

"Where is my family?" Loki cried, his voice rising.

"You have to play the final game," Sif said in the same flat, emotionless voice. "If you do well, perhaps you will earn your family back. If you fail, you will lose all you have left."

"How do we play this game?" he asked.

She didn't answer, only stared at him with expressionless eyes, and then repeated, "You have to play the final game." It was clear they would not get any more out of her than that.

Loki tried to steady his breathing. "One game that we have to win in order to get our parents back," he said softly. "That doesn't sound too bad." There was no answer. "Thor? _Thor!"_

His brother was gone.

Loki turned wildly back to the child-Sif. "Where is he?" he shouted. "Where's my brother?"

But she was gone as well. He was completely alone.

A fog began to rise slowly from the ground, growing thicker as it swirled around him. It joined together in a vaguely shaped door. Loki took a deep breath. What choice did he have? He passed through.

He didn't know what he had been expecting, but it certainly wasn't this. After going through the door of fog, he found himself standing outside. It was nowhere he recognized. There were smooth, green hills that rolled gently into one another as far as he could see. The sky was a soft, cloudless blue. On top of one of the hills in the distance was something white, but Loki couldn't make out what it was.

It was...tranquil. After all he had been through today, it seemed strange. What kind of 'game' was this? he wondered.

_Ding dong!_

The bells sounded again, more than one note this time. They started out softly, but were steadily growing louder. They still held that strange mixture of sadness and urgency. Loki put his hands over his ears, but of course that didn't help, for the bells were inside his head.

Though the bells were loud, they didn't block out the clock. _Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock._

As he didn't know what else to do, he began to walk towards the white object on one of the hills. As it came nearer, it slowly grew clearer, but he kept hoping that it was something other than what he thought it was.

The bells grew ever louder, the clock kept ticking, and finally, he was standing in front of the white object. His dreaded suspicions were confirmed.

It was a coffin.

Loki stopped two feet away. He had to go closer, see what- _who_- was inside it, but he couldn't. Twice he stepped forward, and twice he stepped back again. He was too afraid of what he would see. But finally, he did.

It was empty.

Breathing a sigh of relief, he sank to the ground against it. After a time, a strange feeling came over him. The coffin wanted something from him. He didn't knew how, but he knew that it did. He didn't know what though. Suddenly he was struck by a new thought. What if the coffin was meant for him?

_Ding dong! Ding dong!_ The bells were growing louder, more urgent. _Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock..._He might as well have just had someone screaming at him: _you're running out of time!_

"The game is over. You have failed."

The child-Sif was at his side again.

"What?" he gasped. "No! I didn't know how to play; I didn't know the rules-"

She interrupted in her voice that was devoid of all emotion. "You have lost the game. You have failed."

"No!" Loki cried, growing more frantic. "Let me try again!"

"The game is over," she continued in her monotone. "You have failed."

A cold fear came over Loki. He turned, slowly, back to the white coffin.

"No, no, no," he breathed, eyes widening.

His worst fear had come true.

His only brother was lying in the coffin.

Dead.

A cry of denial tore from his lips. "NO!" This could not be possible, Thor could _not_ be dead, he could not, not, _not_ be- "_NO!" _Loki leaned over the coffin, grasping his brother's cold hand. He couldn't breathe. He gasped, tears running down his cheeks.

The bells were silent now. The clock was no longer ticking. Everything was quiet, so quiet, the only sound to be heard his ragged sobs. It felt like the end of everything.

Rain began to fall, harder and harder. The water mixed with the tears on his face. Soon a full storm was raging. Loki sat in the middle of it all, clinging to Thor's cold, dead hand as if it were all he had left in the world.

Oh, if only he could have his brother back for one minute! Even for only one minute. There were so many things he hadn't said to him! He would give anything to have Thor back for even the shortest of moments, just long enough to tell him that he loved him and that he was sorry, so sorry...

It was as if he were caught in a horrible nightmare. If only that were true, if only he would wake up!

He didn't know how long it went on. Eventually, he felt the presence of another being. Loki turned. There were people, lots of people, all around him.

"Who are you?" he asked in a broken whisper. "What do you want?"

A woman stepped forward from the crowd. "We are the people you killed."

He recoiled. "What do you want?" he asked. "To...to kill me?"

The woman inclined her head towards the coffin. "We've come to take his body."

"No," Loki gasped, holding Thor's hand tighter. "You can't have him!"

"We have to take his body away," she protested calmly.

"But he's my brother!"

"He's your brother," she agreed, "and you have killed him."

"No!" he said hoarsely, shaking. "I didn't."

"You lost the game."

"I didn't know how to play!"

"That does not change the fact that you lost. You killed your brother."

"No, no, no," Loki whispered. He was losing his grip on reality; he no longer knew what was real and what wasn't. Thor was dead...wasn't he? How could he be dead? Everything was becoming more and more hazy...

He tossed and turned on the cold stone floor...

Wait, was he on a stone floor?

Thor _couldn't_ be dead, he simply wouldn't _allow_ him to be dead...

Loki's eyes snapped open. He lay, panting softly, then slowly sat up. He blinked twice.

He shook his head, trying to clear it. Everything was always so confused in the first moments after waking...

He was in his cell. In the dungeons of the castle, where they had put him yesterday...it had been yesterday, hadn't it? After he had returned to Asgard. With Thor.

Thor...he had been dreaming, dreaming that Thor was dead, and there was a white coffin, and people had come to take away his body...

Loki blinked again. He had just been dreaming, and he knew it had been long, and terrifying, and...what had the dream included? It was quickly fading from his mind; he could remember nothing but the sight of Thor laying in the coffin...Loki found himself shaking.

"Brother?"

Loki started, glancing up. "Thor?" he asked hoarsely. "What are you doing here?" But he didn't give his brother a chance to answer, for the next moment his hands acted of their own accord, grabbing Thor's and pulling him closer. Thor seemed surprised- shocked, actually- but he didn't object to Loki's embrace. Loki knew he wasn't thinking, but he didn't care; all he cared about was that moments ago he had been sobbing over Thor's dead body, and though he knew it was only a dream it seemed so _real..._

After a few seconds, he came to his senses, remembering where he was and what all had happened in the past few days. He had tried to take over Midgard. He had failed. He had fought his brother.

And he was currently holding onto that same brother as if he never intended to let him go.

Slowly, though some part of him protested, he let go of Thor. "What are you doing here?" he asked again, giving no explanation for what he had just done.

And Thor didn't ask for any. "I...I wanted to see you," he said, sounding a little lost. Suddenly Loki wondered if he had been suffering from troubling dreams as well. Then Thor started blabbing on about trials and the Allfather, but Loki stopped listening. He was trying to remember his dream.

The castle had been abandoned, he remembered that...and...he thought there had been a child version of himself. Loki closed his eyes, and could almost hear the sound of bells. He gave a frustrated sigh. Dreams always seemed so fuzzy after waking.

"There was a clock on my arm," he said, vaguely aware that his words would make no sense to Thor.

"What?" his brother asked blankly.

"Never mind."

There had been a dark tunnel...and...

"I needed to tell you something," Loki said suddenly.

"What did you need to tell me, brother?" Thor asked.

"I'm trying to...remember," Loki murmured. He closed his eyes again. There was something he had wanted to tell Thor so badly; he had wished he could have him back for just one minute so that he could tell him...but what _was_ it?

He could feel Thor watching him intently.

He remembered tears on his cheeks, and rain, and...

The memory eluded him.

"Brother?"

Finally, Loki spoke again. "It doesn't matter." A weary sigh escaped his lips. "It probably wasn't anything important."

_Author's Note: Hope you enjoyed that. Reviews are very much cherished, treasured, loved, and appreciated. _


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